The Kabuki Goes International: Bebe and the Flotilla Investigation

Schumer told his audience that the "Palestinian people still don't believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution" and added that "they don't believe in the Torah, in David." As a result,"you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay." It's the Israeli blockade which accomplishes that, he argued. And Schumer is due some credit for being honest enough (unlike most devoted Israel defenders) to admit that a prime purpose of the blockade has nothing to do with keeping arms away from Hamas, but rather, is to economically strangle the people in Gaza -- meaning not Hamas, but the 1.5 million human beings (men, women and children) who live there:

And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go, makes sense.

So as long as Israel stops just short of starving them all to death, then what Israel is doing is justified -- just like John Yoo explained that American torture is perfectly legal and permissible just as long as it stops short of causing major organ failure or death (or, as Juan Cole put it, "anything short of 'starving to death', i.e. mass extermination in the camps, is all right as long as it convinces the enemy?"). I think the most repugnant part of Schumer's comments is when he spoke about Gazans as though they were dogs needing to be trained to behave properly: the blockade is justified because it shows the Palestinians living there that "when there's some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement." Is that -- punish the people of Gaza for the acts of Terrorists -- not the very definition of "collective punishment," which happens to be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions?

Well, that's just dandy. And Jews who have been on the other end of this same justification for thousands of years are OK with it as long as it's aimed at somebody else? Half the Jews in that room - or their parents or grandparents - came to America to escape those who thought just like that about them. Irony Is King. Or should that read Hypocrisy Is King?

Of course, Irony (or Hypocrisy) equally requires that those who point out or otherwise draw attention to the Irony (or Hypocrisy) must be punished. So sayeth AIPAC Boy Toy Brad Sherman (Dem, natch) who this week demanded "that the Justice Department prosecute all American citizens who were on board the flotilla attacked by Israel (for, in essence, providing material support to Terrorists by trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans), as well as demanding that Homeland Security permanently ban all the other passengers from entering the U.S."

Pretty.

Then I read that Bebe's Cabinet has named an independent legal commission to investigate the attack on the flotilla in order to, I suppose, satisfy international and internal Israeli anger over what is, after all, a vicious criminal act. There seem to be some genuine legal heavyweights involved here.

A retired Supreme Court justice, Jacob Turkel, will head the committee, whose members will included Shabtai Rosen, 93, a professor of international law who is an Israel Prize laureate in legal sciences and a Hague Prize laureate in international law. Also on the panel will be Maj. Gen. (res. ) Amos Horev, former president of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Monday's cabinet meeting that the main goal of the Gaza flotilla probe is to prove to the world that the Israel Navy operation on the Gaza-bound aid ship was appropriate and met international standards.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Monday's cabinet meeting that the main goal of the Gaza flotilla probe is to prove to the world that the Israel Navy operation on the Gaza-bound aid ship was appropriate and met international standards.

"The government decision will make it clear to the world that Israel is acting legally, responsibly, and with complete transparency," said Netanyahu.

Oh.

Right-wing whackos like Netanyahu always know how things are going to work out because they cook the results in advance to avoid embarrassment. In its studies the Heritage Foundation always starts with its conclusions about how lazy the poor are, for example, and then they make up evidence that proves it. It's actually a technique Bebe has used before. When he was at the center of the Mossad disinformation op that invented bogus "evidence" that Kurt Waldheim had been a Nazi when he proved to be insufficiently unfriendly to Palestinians, Netanyahu pulled substantially the same trick when he announced that he had found the documentation before it turned out the Mossad had finished creating it.

Comments

Fuck Israel. It is worse than the Nazis whose barbaric conduct created impetus for the theft of Palestine and the formation of the state. Israel would commit full on genocide in Gaza and the West Bank but for the fact that the world is watching. So they have to do it slowly in an open air concentration camp.

The people who suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis (all dead now) would roast in their graves at this egregious metamorphosis of their decendants into the enemies they once loathed and fled.

Bang for the Buck: Boosting the American Economy

Compassionate Conservatism in Action

Molly

"We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war."

Zinn

"[O]ur time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."

Bono

"True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice, it's a command. ...

God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us, if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure."

The Reverend Al Sharpton

Ray wasn't singing about what he knew, 'cause Ray had been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains. He was singing about what he believed to be.

Mr. President, we love America, not because of all of us have seen the beauty all the time.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Marx

''With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent will produce eagerness, 50 percent positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime which it will not scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.''